AURORA | The view from the Kim Robards Dance studio is unfiltered and inescapable.
Dancers practicing pliés have a direct view of East Colfax Avenue via the windows that make up the building’s north and east sides. That view is tough to avoid, no matter how one may twist, bend or leap. Dance troupes running through routines on the studio’s central black marley floor have a constant view of the colorful cast of characters that amble up and down the strip on a daily basis in the center of the Aurora Cultural Arts District.
African women sporting vividly colored headdresses, students reporting to the nearby Downtown Aurora Visual Arts gallery, shopkeeps lounging in front of storefronts, families en route to stops for the No. 15 bus and vagrants making their daily rounds –— they’re all liable pass in front of the furniture-outlet-turned-to-dance-studio at Colfax and Florence Street.
The view goes both ways. For passersby, there’s no mistaking this space for anything other than a dance studio, thanks to those windows.
That dual access took some getting used to for Luke Bradshaw, a 23-year-old London native and professional dancer who arrived in Aurora at the beginning of March. For the past four weeks, Bradshaw has been on an extended audition at the KRD company. He’s taught classes and enjoyed a starring role in performances at the studio. He’s led shows at a local elementary school and mingled with the neighborhood’s community of dancers, actors, artists and other creative types at the recent Athena Arts Festival. In the process, he’s had to get used to a creative atmosphere very different from the one in England.
“I’ve had quite a disciplined experience in my dance lessons and upbringing,” Bradshaw said. “When I was at the dance school, you wouldn’t know it was there. It was nondescript and there was just a tiny little sign. You’d have to know it was there … Here, it’s just completely on the street,” he added, noting that first-time students often stop in to sign up for classes.
So far, the open access of ACAD’s first dance studio hasn’t dissuaded Bradshaw. He’s heading back to London this week, but he’s already looking for ways to become a more permanent part of the company. Bradshaw and troupe founder Kim Robards are working to iron out visa issues and secure a much longer stay in Aurora for the dancer next year. He’s planning to return in January or February for a gig as a full-time company member.
Bradshaw’s arrival goes back to the mission Robards had in mind when she founded the troupe in 1990. Her vision has always been one of an international organization that draws on all kinds of styles, forms and theories when in dance.
“We have international connections. We’ve done touring in China and other Asian countries. We were part of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2009,” Robards said. “It’s always been my intent to have more collaborations and crossovers, bringing dancers from Europe.”
This particular cultural connection would come at a critical time for the company that landed in Aurora last year. Bradshaw would make his debut as a company member just as the troupe cuts the ribbon on its fancy new digs across the street from its current location next year. The new studio will take up the 13,000-square-foot empty storefront on the north side of Colfax Avenue; it will feature multiple studio spaces, a new theater and an expanded parking lot.
Robards plans to lease the $875,000 space directly from the city and she’s looking for support from company patrons. Before the doors on the new facility open, Robards wants to raise $250,000 through a capital campaign. Robards said the new building and the international caliber of performers like Bradshaw will cement the organization’s role in the permanent cultural history of the city.
“This is part of becoming part of the history of Aurora and of ACAD,” Robards said. “Hopefully, we can leave a legacy long after I’m gone. It will become a great performing arts center and center for dance.”
For Bradshaw, the new space will be a place to learn a new style of dance unique to the United States. In the past month, Bradshaw has already worked to refine an American style that emphasizes flexibility and sheer strength much more than the routines he studied in London.
“In the U.K., the emphasis can just be on the body being in space. That is the current trend in modern and contemporary dance, almost toward the physical art,” he noted, adding that the style prizes expression over power. “It’s done in a more athletic way here. That’s an important reason I’ve come here. Line is important.”
But dance theory has only been part of Bradshaw’s education in Aurora. The rest has come from the residents who’ve stopped in on a whim to sign up for classes. It’s come in the conversations struck up with fellow riders on the No. 15 bus as soon as they hear his London drawl. The access and conversation offers its own lessons, Bradshaw insists, and those go beyond leaps and bends.
“I get off the bus and I walk north a few blocks to get home,” he said. “I’ve just had conversations with people the whole way. It seems really friendly.”
Those conversations have been unguarded and unfiltered, just like the street view from the Kim Robards Studio.
Reach reporter Adam Goldstein at 720-449-9707 or agoldstein@aurorasentinel.com